Classroom Innovation - is your classroom like this?

The prestigious Google Academy for 2012 is coming up in London in April and applications had to be in last week. Applicants were given a choice of two topics for creating a video to accompany their online application form, 'Classroom Innovation' and 'Learning and Motivation'. I came across Martin Burnett's video on Classroom Innovation today - just love it. Don't we all want classrooms like this?  By the way, Martin Burnett was the winner of the Best Educational Wiki for 2011 http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/. It is REALLY worth taking a look at his wiki.

Get ready for World Maths Day!

This is a guest post written by Lisa G who is an ITC teacher in Cape Town. Lisa was a Microsoft Innovative finalist in South Africa in 2011 and she keeps an interesting ITC blog http://icteducator.blogspot.com/. I saw this post on her blog this week and asked her if I could use it as a guest post. Last year I wanted to participate in World Maths Day but didn’t get registered in time. So, don’t be like me…prepare well in advance. You’ll need to start now!

World Maths Day is coming up on 7 March 2012.  Have you considered participating?

 

As a school we have taken part and it was a great experience for everyone. Its really simple. All you need to do is get permission from parents, register the children, and then follow the instructions that are very clearly laid out on their website. 

 

It looks from the Pre-registration that one now signs up for World Spelling/Maths/Science Day.  Even better!

 

I registered the children who wanted to take part, and then each day from the time that "practice" begins, they can come in and get used to how the whole event works. I do this so that it is not a surprise when they get to the timed event - they are confident and ready for action!  What I also enjoy about this, is that they can log on at home and continue to practice or compete after school in their own time.

 

The best was listening to their excited shrieks of "I'm playing against Japan!" or "I am playing against India!" or "I am playing against someone in Australia!"  Suddenly the world was bigger than our ICT Lab and we embraced every moment of it!  We got a report back on how each child did and how we achieved as a school. 

 

I am really looking forward to registering our learners for these events again this year. Why don't you? 

 

Wishing all a wonderfully educational 2012!

Take a look at the Edublogs Awards winners 2011

I always look forward in anticipation to the Edublogs Awards every year to see their choice of best blogs, wikis, podcasts, webinar series, social networks, Web tools, individual tweeters  and group twitter hashtags. Initially potential winners from the categories are nominated, and then everyone votes. This is a big affair!

Took a look at the winners from around the world.  It is a great way of keeping in touch with what is happening on the social networking scene.   (By the way, with reference to blogs, for your blog to be nominated for the Edublogs Awards it can be part of any platform and not necessarily an Edublogs' blog).

I am embedding the winners document below so that you can see the categories, but please visit the actual Google Doc mentioned under a), or visit the Edublogs Awards site mentioned under b) so that you can actually visit the various links. They are fantastic!



a) Their embedded Google Doc:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?hl=en_US&hl=en_US&key=0AlhMhHCqHvgvdERrVTVpZ1NhNmF2b2xvUm1UTFM1Z2c&single=true&gid=0&output=html

b) Their Edublogs Award website:

http://edublogawards.com/

Southern Stars

This is a guest post from Deb Avery. Since it mentions me I thought I would add it here!
SchoolnetSA has encouraged some superstars to shine over the past few years. With support through training and access to innovative practices, several teachers have had the opportunity to shine on the international stage.

At the moment, there are 3 such “Southern Stars”

Hlengiwe Mfeka’s story is found on the Case Studies page of the Blog. She and 2 learners are off to Santa Clara, California on the 2 August to attend the Adobe Youth Voices Summit. Hlengiwe’s mentorship has helped learners at Mconjwana High School in rural KZN to produce a very thought provoking and moving movie on Street Children.

Another Southern Star who has just returned from dazzling teachers in the Northern Hemisphere is Warren Sparrow.

Warren is a previous Microsoft Innovative Teachers Forum winner. His “Veggie Man” media project has been selected to be showcased as part of the Adobe Youth Voices Festival. This project will be screened with other projects during the International Education and Resource Network (IEARN) Conference in Taiwan. This conference was held in Kaohsiung City (2nd Largest city in Taiwan) and the theme was Green Tech, Green Life, Green Era. SchoolNetSA staff felt it was a bit sad for his media piece to go to Taiwan without him, and managed to find a sponsor so that he could accompany it! We look forward to hearing Warren’s reflections on the IEARN conference. You can see his video at http://www.schooltube.com/video/58be1f70e1973c694fad/Super-Veggie-Man

The other three “Southern Stars” are on their way to Washington USA right now.

Fiona Beal, Ngaka Ralekoala and Cheryl Douglas. They have been selected to be part of the inaugural Microsoft Partners-in-Learning Institute week at MS Headquarters in USA. The Partners in learning Network has identified the top innovative teachers in the World, and Fiona, Cheryl and Ngaka are amongst the less that 500 teachers globally who have been invited to join the circle and the even more exclusive group who have been invited to attend the workshop. All three have been winners in the South African Microsoft Innovative Teachers Forum in the past. We look forward to profiling them and their excellent work soon.

These are all exceptional teachers – but all Premium Members have the opportunity of becoming exceptional. SchoolnetSA is committed to helping all teachers grow to new levels of innovation. Being involved in PM interventions and entering the Innovative Educators Forum competition next year is a good place to start.

Thinkquest teams

Last year I had the privilege of presenting three Thinkquest courses to teachers around Cape Town. Thinkquest projects is an amazing interface and the children love it because of its mini-Facebook (as they call it) appeal. Teachers love it because of its online safety approach. I was very keen to enter a team into the competition this year. When I asked my Head for permission he wanted ALL the Grade 6s and 7s to enter. Well, I know that is an almost impossible task, I mean around 50... but why not get them all doing Thinkquest projects I thought. So that is what we are doing. They have all thought of their own fascinating projects. Every break the computer room is buzzing with enthusiastic project workers. As it turns out I have a very good one emerging for the Digital Media event, and about three others in the Thinkquest projects event that I will enter. The other groups will get a Technology mark. It has been a good way of teaching them about plagiarism, royalty free music, not only using the internet for project but also finding out from experts, field trips, and polls, not to mention working in a team, sharing the workload, brainstorming, uploading information, repecting other people’s right to privacy of information, and online safety etc. Here is a slideshow of some of the budding Thinkquest teams. The prizes for the winners are awesome - a trip to America (with one parent each) and an apple laptop for each winning team member is the main prize on offer.

Here is a Picasa slideshow of the Grade 6 and 7 teams